Curious since 1993

Kristina Cabochan old soul, young eyes

[livinginsentences]

Life feels like a Jason Mraz song

Currently 11 on a Saturday morning. We have a week long break at work for Holy Week and I’m feeling GREAT. A little sleepy, but content, happy, and excited for life. 

Our house is a mess since we are not used to having no house help and mama’s been doing all the work. She is tired AF, and I surmise she was so stressed (and still is because I think she is v easily stressed and stresses about the littlest things) her immune system went downhill and now she has shingles. It’s scary and sad, and also, forgive me, a little funny. 

Now, we do all the chores at home and it’s fine, we’re just not used to doing them because we live a very easy, pampered life. Aside from the home updates, life has been GREAT at work. I love all my bosses--I learn so much from them. I have interesting and amusing, and genuine (I feel!) friends at work too. I think it helps a lot to have people your age at work. I feel appreciated and seen and I truly feel like I am where I belong. 

About dance--I just came back from the RF Jam in SG and it has changed my life. TRULY, MADLY, DEEPLY. I’ve never been a great dancer, but I have always loved music and I loved expressing that through dancing to it. It was just natural and it felt good. But when it came to learning choreography, I was slow. When it came to moving gracefully, I was floppy, unschooled, and rough. Still am, but I’m practicing everyday, experimenting, and learning.

One great thing I’ve observed is that because of my job, I’ve been learning so much that I can apply beyond work. I’ve been reading a lot about creativity and innovation lately because I am designing and developing a program for the employees to help them practice innovation at work. Some of the best things I’ve really read a lot about is the art of failing. We are so afraid of it but failing is part of life. It doesn’t mean that we aim to fail, but that we are not afraid of the possibility of failing if things do not go as planned--and it helps if you can laugh at yourself when you do trip on your own feet. 

Experimenting usually means failing a lot. And it is only by failing and learning and experimentation that we can discover more about ourselves and what we are capable of--this is so true--and I feel it so much in dance now. I have been experimenting like never before, and it has opened up an entire universe or alternate reality that I’ve only just started to explore. 

Beau Lotto explained it best in this Big Think video about the importance of uncertainty in discovery---about how the one thing where uncertainty is celebrated is in science and I cannot agree more!

Link to the video: 

http://bigthink.com/videos/beau-lotto-why-great-artists-leaders-and-scientists-open-their-minds-to-uncertainty

Most people have the assumption that when something has been published, it has been proven. Or that scientific facts are all certain things, but actually the spirit of science does not live in the facts of it--but in the process of science. The Spirit of Inquiry--The Scientific Method--The Art of Asking Questions--This is the spirit of science, this is the life of it, this is what makes science science!

And this applies in art as well! If you keep doing the same things over and over again, you will never learn anything new. And the process of self-led discovery is exciting! And one I’ve just started to really delve into in my dance. 

Aside from everything else that has happened in SG, this is one of the things that has really given me so much life and excitement. I am so grateful for having all the elements in my life aligned so well right now. It took some time, but I’m here and I am happy. 

[livinginsentences]

The Landscape of Love

Relationships have their own contours and spaces. Some are composed of meadows, simple and uncomplicated, perhaps just about to begin. Some are sculpted mountain ranges with their steep inclines and deep valleys. 

The climate is unique in every relationship too. Some relationships are cold like the seas in Antarctica. Some have tropical weather all year round, beaches as warm as sunlight. Some landscapes have deep rivers that flow fast and barely encounter any difficulty before rejoining the ocean. 

Old marriages are especially complex. The bondage of time shaped these lands. They have experienced visitors of the mildest manner, as gentle as the sunrise, and also invaders who wreak havoc like hurricanes and floods and leave their lands almost unrecognizable. 

Old arguments in old marriages are like rainfall. You are never exactly sure when they will come, but when they are coming, you can feel the shift in the air. When the rain falls, they water the dry rivers of old and keep them flowing once more. Old arguments are agents in shaping the landscape of love.  

[livinginsentences]

I’m not sure how it is in small families, but in large ones relationships tend to shift over time. You might be best friends with one brother or sister, then two years later it might be someone else. Then it’s likely to change again, and again after that. It doesn’t mean that you’ve fallen out with the person you used to be closest to but that you’ve merged into someone else’s lane, or had him or her merge into yours. Trios form, then morph into quartets before splitting into teams of two. The beauty of it is that it’s always changing.

David Sedaris, The Perfect Fit published on March 28, 2016 on The New Yorker

[livinginsentences]

The Spacetime Continuum of Right Now

Life is harder for some, easier for others. But sometimes we get to the bottom and feel like it’s the lowest we can go. It still feels like going up is a possibility, because what goes down must come up too, but it feels like we’re so trapped in the darkness that that’s all there is. Just darkness, and no light. Even if you know there must be light.  Long way of saying, I really truly feel like shit. But of course, I’m still hoping. But giving up seems so tempting. It’s easier for me right now to want to just give up because going forward seems so hard.  If I really think about what I want, I just want to be happy and content again. And what’s making me discontented is the fact that I am jobless. Or seeking for a job. I did all the right things, you know? I studied well. I got top of the class grades. I have honors. I impressed a good amount of people and classmates and teachers seem to think I’m intelligent and I provide good insight and effort.  I try to be a good daughter, I try to be a good sister. I try to be fit, I try to be healthy. I try to be kind and generous. I try to learn more everyday. I like learning. But it feels like all this is not enough. Like I’m not enough, and where I am is not enough and I’m just so frustrated and lost and I don’t know where to go. But I know I just really want to get hired and have a good job I can be proud of.  I am not sure if I am having difficulty grappling with my vantage point on the spacetime continuum where the events of right now are unfolding because I’ve always been lucky and gotten things easily and this is the first time I’m really working hard for something I really want.  I am so full of doubts. I doubt if what I want is what I really want or just what I think I want because it’s what I know will make my mother proud, or because it’s what will make me have sweet revenge on everyone who has doubted me and my capabilities, on people who look down on me and make me feel small. I am not sure if it isn’t just my ego speaking.  I know my problems are really privileged life problems. But they are here and I am not sure how to make them leave me alone. 

I just want to be productive, free, happy, making art, excelling in the things I set out to do. I haven’t created art for a long time. I haven’t drawn or painted. I’ve written some poems, yes. But still the feeling of not being enough. Of not being good enough. I think I just need to get punched in the face and get knocked out. My mind is my personal hell and jail cell. But it is also what sets me free and keeps me hoping. 

But I know the solution is simple: get up off that ass and START WORKING.  But it can be really hard when the seat is buried more than 6 feet under and you have to push against all the mud pressing down on you. It’s heavy. It’s humiliating. It’s dark. There is no light. And no matter how hard you push against the mud weighing you down, your effort will never be enough.  How to get unstuck? Maybe I need to go quantum tunnelling through a wormhole to end up on a different point on the spacetime continuum of right now. Only problem is, how do I make a wormhole?

[livinginsentences]

How to make complaining productive: make art

Aside from Maria Popova’s Brain Pickings, I have marked NY Mag’s The Science of Us as one of the “See First” feeds on my wall on Facebook.

I found the following passages from an article by Kristin Wong titled “How Happy People Complain” in one of those posts.

James W. Pennebaker, a researcher and professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, has conducted a number of studies on the topic of writing as a coping mechanism. In one study, Pennebaker and other researchers asked subjects who were going through a job loss to write about their stress. They found that writing helped those subjects cope better, but perhaps even more interestingly, subjects who wrote about losing their jobs were more likely to find new ones down the road.

...

In his book, Expressive Writing, Pennebaker says you can start by writing about “what keeps you awake at night.” As he puts it, the “emotional upheaval bothering you the most and keeping you awake at night is a good place to start writing.” Can’t complain about that.

(Bolds mine)

Can I leave this here as a justification of this blog?

Actually, this research rings a bell for me, as does the name of one of the researchers, Pennebaker. Writing is powerful. Personally, writing has helped sort my whirlpool-brain into something that resembles something less chaotic.

I think this may be because writing is a way to mindfulness. When you are writing you cannot help but write down each word one at a time and focus on your idea lest you lose track of it. Writing helps me pay better attention to my thoughts, my feelings and in effect, understand myself better. I remember Sarah Kay, the legendary Spoken Word Poet, say something similar one time. That she writes about things that she doesn’t understand. She never writes about anything she already fully knows, but she does start from what she does know.

As Anais Nin is known to once have said,

“Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terrors, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them.”

(credits to Google for the photo) This is also true of me.

I don’t think one can create art without any excess of joy, or sadness, or loneliness, or yearning and longing. If art is expression, then how can one create it without any emotion to express, and when that feeling overflows and cannot be kept inside oneself anymore, we, its bearer, can then transform it into something else. An act we call Transfiguration in J.K. Rowling’s world, or Sublimation, according to Freud. In this way, aren’t we all a little bit like magicians? Am I not good in procrastinating? I was originally supposed to write about my lack of a job, and subsequently speed up my process of job hunting and just honestly speaking, to sort things in my mind. And then I was supposed to write about my lack of a love life, and therefore... you get the drift! In any case, read the entirety of Brain Picking’s feature of Anais Nin here. Short, enlightening read.

[livinginsentences]

Photos c/o the amazing Momentum app on Safari

First photo: Dec. 12, 2016

Second photo: Jan. 29, 2017

Third photo: Feb. 6, 2017 I love this app. :)

[livinginsentences]

Friendship and Being Seen

My best friend and I back in December 2016, just a month ago On a completely different note from the previous post, I am extremely at peace right now. Okay, not extremely, but my heart is less heavy and my mind is calmer. I have finally decided and I have resigned from my post. 

Two nights ago (Monday, Jan.30), I met with my best friend in Greenhills and we didn’t really do anything. I just ate merienda (snack) because I was hungry and she just sat there with me and we talked a lot, as we always do.  Earlier this week on Sunday, I sent her my latest resume to see what she thought about it. I was satisfied with it, more or less. But when we sat down for me to eat my BreadTalk bread and drink my yummy Yuan Yang (I think that was what he tea+coffee+milk drink from Toastbox was called), we started talking about our plans for the future and she gave me so much inspiration and encouragement effortlessly. She helped me so much in terms of figuring out what to do next, how to improve my resume, how to prepare for my interviews, applications. She gave me fantastic ideas about how to research properly for the interviews, how to find companies and jobs I would like to work for. I got to reflect on the things I did wrong in my past interview experience. She shared what she learned from her own mistakes and what she has learned from school and through the course of her own journey as a young professional with big dreams and a zest for life.

We are turning into adults.

There is nothing better than true friends and being clearly seen and still loved for all that you are, can be and has been. 

As best friends, there is an undeniable ease in being together and just being candid and open and nonjudgmental and I feel extremely lucky to have experienced this depth and extent of friendship with Denden. In spite of being separated spatially right now, and growing and learning in different cities, in different countries, we have remained intertwined and inseparable and I love that. Yesterday, I was reading about the beautiful relationship between Kahlil Gibran and Mary Haskell on Brain Pickings. I have always had a special place in my heart for Kahlil Gibran ever since fully appreciating his book, The Prophet. But I have never wondered about how he came to write so wisely and truthfully about relationships, marriage and love in the book. Learning about the woman behind at least some of his most profound writings about life and love is such an uplifting and soul-satisfying gift. Mary was around 10 years older than Kahlil, and for her this was a fact of life that served as the deciding factor against accepting Kahlil’s proposal to marry. Although they never married and lived apart from each other, they loved with a love that was more than love, as Edgar Allan Poe had once written.

Mary was the one who enabled Kahlil to nurture his talents in painting and writing. She supported his studies and became his benefactor, but their relationship evolved into something much more, something truly rare and one of a kind. Mary once wrote to a disheartened Kahlil, 

“Your work is not only books and pictures. They are but bits of it. Your work is You, not less than you, not parts of you… These days when you “cannot work” are accomplishing it, are of it, like the days when you “can work.” There is no division. It is all one. Your living is all of it; anything less is part of it. — Your silence will be read with your writings some day, your darkness will be part of the Light.”

I have never heard of Mary Haskell, but her writing rivals the depth and poetry of Kahlil Gibran’s. It is no doubt that they were a well-suited match, both insightful, magnanimous in spirit and capable of loving and caring wholeheartedly for another. 

One of my favorite passages from The Prophet is about marriage:

“Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.”

Kahlil and Mary’s relationship was the perfect realization of the independent, but unwavering love he illustrates. The kind of love that leaves room for growth, a bind that liberates both parties.

Mary wrote to encourage and to soothe, to reassure Kahlil. I am guessing here because I’ve never even met either of them, but I will hazard to say that she was one of the most influential and wonderful lights in his life. She once wrote him,

“Nothing you become will disappoint me; I have no preconception that I’d like to see you be or do. I have no desire to foresee you, only to discover you. You can’t disappoint me.”

And he wrote, 

“I wish I could tell you, beloved Mary, what your letters mean to me. They create a soul in my soul. I read them as messages from life. Somehow they always come when I need them most, and they always bring that element which makes us desire more days and more nights and more life. Whenever my heart is bare and quivering, I feel the terrible need of someone to tell me that there is a tomorrow for all bare and quivering hearts and you always do it, Mary.”

What a bond. And I believe my relationship with my best friend is similar (#char) because although we have been separated since high school--we went to different universities, I studied abroad and came back, then she studied abroad, and is now working abroad--our bond is just as enabling, as genuine. 

And I am truly grateful for that. 

(update, same day, 10 pm)

I just realized that one of my other most favorite writers once said something in the same vein. Rainer Maria Rilke also wrote in Letters to a Young Poet,

“But once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvelous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky.”

Denise, Lexi (?), and I, when we were young(er), fourth year HS (2011)

[livinginsentences]

Lost and Confused

I’ve been feeling this for a while now. And whenever I realize just how lost and confused I feel I can sense the panic creeping in and my heart on the verge of palpitating, my mind about to scream in agony.  It’s breathtakingly agonizing to feel this lost and confused about life. I can see so little of what’s ahead of me although I know where I want to go. There’s so much of hope and faith just filling in the blank spaces where the light doesn’t reach. 

All I can do is take the next right step. But damn hell is it scary.

(On a side note, I am really stressed about my PMS goals as well.)

I know that I can’t continue with my current job anymore, not just because of what I’ve written in the last blog post. There are a million reasons that would make me want to stay and about 250 of those are my students, but there are also a million reasons for me to go and the strongest one is that I know I’m supposed to be moving on and learning more and that I want to take another step in the direction that my best guess says is towards my dream.

Teaching is my passion. It invigorates me, it makes me nervous and excited and I love preparing for it, actually executing it and hearing from my students and learning from them as well. I love interacting with them because there is always something new to learn from a different person’s brain.

One of the things I am sure of and I’m bracing myself for is that I can’t get 100 percent what I want out of any job. Perhaps there will always be compromise and perhaps I’m going to miss a lot of the things I enjoy right now in my current job, but I just feel and know that I need to move on. I need to jump farther into the unknown cause how else will I see farther than my current horizon? 

I have big dreams and I can’t let fear be my motivation, my limitation, my shackles.

This is incoherent and poorly written, it’s all over the stratosphere, but it needed writing.  I remember what I was supposed to be writing about. I was supposed to be writing about my faith (or the weakness of it). I was supposed to be writing about my issues with religious dogma and how the idea of a god is a convenient cognitive shortcut that makes people overlook both the great and tiny details of life--the little things that allow life to be more nuanced, meaningful, alive, and just unbearably colorful.  But maybe I’ll save that for another post.

[livinginsentences]

Integrity vs. Fear

"We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented." - Elie Wiesel

(Photo from: https://www.flickr.com/photos/govph/21018985474/)

There is a general consensus that the Holocaust is a terrible war crime that destroyed the life and desecrated the dignity of a generation of Jews. In most arguments, most people would agree that it is an event that must not happen again and something that all of humanity must work to prevent from reoccurring. This opinion has, more or less, been a universal moral belief.

However, becoming a universal moral opinion is not the destiny of every atrocity that happens in the world. There are some things that remain morally ambiguous and contested no matter how much the evidence seems to point otherwise. As a particular example, the Martial Law and the innocence and the esteem of the president who proclaimed it, Ferdinand Marcos himself, remain a hot topic of debate for many Filipinos to this day, which was most intensely felt when the Marcos burial was being discussed in many Filipino homes, news, and on social media.

I am working right now as a Student Development Assistant, or a Guidance Counselor, and I was told by colleagues that I must not discuss my opinions, in general, to the students because their own opinions may be affected. I understand that as a counselor, your job is to help guide thinking and explore options and consequences, but not to be directive or give advice, and I do my best to accomplish this when I am counselling. But I think when I am holding a Homeroom Guidance class, I am a teacher first and foremost, and being someone involved and having gone through basic education myself, I know that students will be affected by whatever their teachers say or do, no matter what. As long as there is an interaction, and especially in any kind of relationship, people affect each other however intentionally or unintentionally. And I know that at this age, students are especially vulnerable to other’s opinions and easily impressionable, which is all the more reason to guide their thinking process. 

I am not sure if I am just exhibiting arrogance, especially intellectual arrogance, but I do believe I have the right to share my opinion, as I believe that I arrived at it not through purely heuristic means, but through careful thinking, research, and deliberation as well. To be honest, I don’t have a problem with disagreeing with someone and hearing out a stance that is different from mine, as long as their reason for their belief is hard won and thought out well. I think as educators, that is what we must impart on our students the most -- the ability to think for themselves. 

What I am afraid of is perpetrating the indifference of my students by refusing to discuss matters of social relevance with them. And what I am most upset about is that the school complains that our students are too apathetic about the sufferings of other people who we hear about in the news, that the students lack social and political awareness. Firstly, the students are living lives far different from those suffering around the world, so it is understandable that they cannot immediately identify with those people. Secondly, if teachers are not allowed to discuss their opinions about moral issues with the students, how can we expect to engage the students in these issues? I cannot understand how a school that refuses to let the students question their beliefs, expand their thinking, and deny teachers the right to share their opinion, how can this school then question the product it creates in the form of its students?

There are several faulty arguments that I heard in the course of my questioning the school and its employees. First one is that we must only share facts and not our opinions. I ask, can you honestly say there are facts? Aren’t all our thoughts, perceptions and beliefs, opinions? I can defend this in a psychobiological/neuroscientific way which I won’t for the sake of getting to the point of this post faster. There is also a sociological counterargument for this because, as most sociologists would say, everything is a social construct. Another faulty argument is that the opinion may be traced back to me, but first of all, what is wrong with that? It is my opinion after all. But they said, as a teacher representing the school, when the parents complain (MY NUMBER ONE MOST DETESTED ARGUMENT OF ALL), they will blame the school. And my answer to this is I would never want to make fear my motivation for doing the things I do or holding the beliefs I hold. 

And that, my friends, is where we come to the crux of the matter. I am afraid that one day I would have to give up my integrity for the sake of fear when I am part of a company or organization, especially when I am older. Will I ever get tired of holding an unpopular opinion? Will I one day give up and just follow without questioning, demoralized and disillusioned? I sincerely hope not.

[livinginsentences]

Perfect fusion of funk, soul, and modern sounds <3  What a great cake to stumble upon! Hahaha! 

[livinginsentences]

The year 2016 in review

I just got back from lunch with Auntie Susan, Kuya Jet, Mop, his Vietnamese girlfriend, and the family, except Kuya because he went to the gym, of course. We ate at Mann Hann and it was a very enjoyable lunch. Kuya Jepoy and Janice weren’t there since they were working, so Kuya Jet cracked jokes about “Chep Jep” which made Mama cry with mirth.  I’m glad that our families have grown closer because I remember a time when Mama would snob Auntie Susan and give her the cold treatment. It was always awkward when they visited us for Christmas, but now, their visit and spending time with them is something I look forward to because they’re a loud entertaining bunch. It’s easy to tell when Mama’s relatives are visiting ‘cause you can hear them a mile away.  Now, the real subject of the matter though is the year 2016 in review. While change is a slow trickle of little things building up to big moments, one of the best changes in my personal recent history is Mama’s relationship with Auntie Susan, which brought a lot of good change to both of our families. Although, as if to balance this renewed relationship with Mama’s relatives, our relationship with Papa’s side of the family has turned quite sour. From a family reunion I look forward to every week, our weekly Arcadia reunions has turned into an obligation much like the Sunday masses. But I must admit, there is something comforting in rituals and traditions. I guess they mark time passing as well.  2016 definitely brought a lot of change--both good and bad. This year, I graduated, got my first job, joined an environmental/adventure-oriented org, toured my foreign friends around, and built lots of good friendships. 

This is me on the Mt. Daraitan peak with Ryza and Sandie early in June.

I am actually proud of all I have accomplished and survived this year. I am glad that I’m no longer visiting the doctors every month, getting blood tests so often and being hospitalized cause of my surgery. 2015 was definitely hard, but 2016 brought in a lot of blessings, many of which were in the form of challenges as well. 

A picture with Ms. Aimee, the Grade 9 Guidance Counselor, during our Recognition Day for the employees in ICA. I am the Grade 10 Student Development Assistant (which is a fancy name for a Guidance Counselor who doesn’t have her license yet).

The advent calendar my club members, JPF (Junior Peer Facilitators), made for me as a birthday surprise on Nov. 29, 2016.

From my favorite duology of 2016, Six of Crows, made by a fan.

Nina and Matthias, one of my favorite couples in fiction. Leigh Bardugo is fantastic!

Me and Pia jogging and bonding for MBS.

This was early in the year before Viv left for Switzerland and Denise was visiting from Singapore.

This was even earlier in the year when Ryza, Ileana and I attended a fund-raising spoken word poetry fund-raising event for the AFS (Anthropology Field School).

This was a photo taken by someone from the UPD Press, I think. It was during our University Graduation and let’s see if you can spot me! :)

This is me and Denden waiting for Row in Singapore.

My Graduation Photo.  As I wave goodbye to 2016, I also want to send out gratitude to it and all the people who made it meaningful. This post cannot encapsulate an entire year of course. But I definitely learned a lot with my first job, working with my colleagues and as a teacher who is responsible for 255 students. I learned a lot from my sisters, and I spent a lot of time being angry, frustrated and just plain fed up by my family, but that’s part of being human.  I’m really grateful for so many things that I don’t even know where to begin. For now, I’ll just list these 16 things that drift up to the surface and I can recall easily.  16 for 2016

今年感謝していること：  (This year, I am grateful for) 

Graduating Magna Cum Laude and making my parents proud.

Having the opportunity to work with the Psych Research Lab and learning from great professors and being inspired by them.

Getting my first job as a Guidance Counselor and experiencing the applied side of psychology, which I have always been daunted with and hesitant about.

Passing the Psychometrician Licensure Board exam and finishing all the processes for application in the PRC head office in Manila. That was stressful. 

Getting into MBS and meeting cool people who all love the sea and the environment as well. Daming crushables hahaha!

Travelling to Singapore and spending June 5 with my best friend who makes life more colorful! Getting to meet her friends there and eating good food.

Being able to say goodbye to Viv before she left for Switzerland and supporting her and her dreams.

Meeting Bianca and becoming closer to Pia as a buddies in MBS.

Building friendships with Ryza, Rio, Eichan, Kyle, Michelle and Migs.

Becoming a club moderator and a career counselor.

Meeting Aeris and becoming a teacher.

Touring Sandie and Sina around the Philippines.

Having enough time for myself and doing things I like and enjoy like exercise and reading YA fiction.

The 8 speakers who accepted my invitation and showed up during the Grade 10 Strand Talk I organized.

My co-workers who have been patient and generous with me.

Getting to spend more time with my siblings, especially with Kuya who is reaching out more to us. 

[livinginsentences]

2016.06.16

Tinapak River at Daraitan Rizal

When Sandie visited Ryza, Sandie, and I

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1st photo - While studying for the board exam, I was reading about the different personality psychologists/theorists and Jung said something that I found interesting and of note. It reminded me of a friend who told me something about how the more androgynous people are, the more interesting they become for him. 2nd to last photo - beautiful pictures from the Momentum app

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The Mistrust of Science - The New Yorker

Science has never been more powerful, but it is under attack.

“Science is not a major or a career. It is a commitment to a systematic way of thinking, an allegiance to a way of building knowledge and explaining the universe through testing and factual observation. The thing is, that isn’t a normal way of thinking. It is unnatural and counterintuitive. It has to be learned. Scientific explanation stands in contrast to the wisdom of divinity and experience and common sense. Common sense once told us that the sun moves across the sky and that being out in the cold produced colds. But a scientific mind recognized that these intuitions were only hypotheses. They had to be tested.” - Atul Gawande

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for all the fresh grads out there :)

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This photo reminds me of Hokkaido.  David. And Kensuke. Mao and her boyfriend. Mao’s family. <3 The sky is a poet.

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Describe your perfect date. <3